The campaign for President of the United States enters a critical week featuring two milestone events that have potential for shaking up the status quo: candidates Barack Obama and Mitt Romney will meet Wednesday for 90 minutes to debate domestic policy and the Department of Labor will issue the September jobs report on Friday.

The campaign status quo has stabilized in President Obama’s favor in the past month: his job approval rating is 50 percent and he leads challenger Mitt Romney nationally by an average of 4.6 points. Polling in the 8 toss-up states that will determine the Electoral College winner rate the race even or give Obama the advantage. As voting has begun in more than half the states, Governor Romney needs to change the momentum of the race or President Obama will win reelection.

THE WEEK AHEAD

President Obama hopes to hold his own in the debate while Governor Romney needs to score a victory. Unfortunately for Romney, the road from the podium to the White House is uphill: five decades of polling data indicates few examples presidential debates altering the course of a campaign. Expectations for Friday’s employment report are middling. The Dow Jones survey suggests an increase of 115,000 in nonfarm payrolls, up only a bit from August’s 96,000 addition – not bad enough to help Romney or bad enough to hurt Obama.

Although Democrats are defending 23 of 33 Senate seats up during a year when Congress has achieved record low ratings, they are poised to win the bare minimum of contests to maintain majority control. A change in the trajectory of the presidential campaign could impact the outcome.

The Republican majority in House of Representatives is not in danger. At best, Democrats might slice 8 seats off the Republican 26-member majority. The result probably locks John Boehner in for reelection to the Speaker’s chair in January.